#1 STOPWATCH

Prologue

At birth, everyone is given a stopwatch, but not a normal one. The stopwatch doesn't count down just any amount of time. It only has one purpose. You can't keep track of how long it takes you to run that mile that you've been trying to achieve, or how long it takes you to do a Rubix cube. It's not an application on a device. It's a small black screen with a matching, unbreakable strap, its technological origin unknown but around since the beginning of history. At least that's what we're told.

The stopwatch counts down to the time you have until you meet your soulmate, Your selected partner chosen for you by fate herself... That of course isn't a promise of true love. No one really knows what it means, but most take it as a sign of something hopeful and prospering. 

Peter Benjamin Parker was given his stopwatch minutes after birth and when the red numbers blinked on it read:

15:63:10:47

15 years, 63 days, 10 minutes and 47 seconds.

It was set in stone for him as it had for the billions that had come before him. That was when he would meet his soulmate. The only thing that existed within the world that could change those numbers was death. 

Only death could steal your time and change your fate.

 So they had said.

• • • • • •

As a teenager, Peter hated his stopwatch. He hated the red, digital numbers on the small, black device that would forever be strapped to his wrist. It was after all, impossible to remove the moment recorder once it was sealed around your wrist. It few with you as a child, the band expanding unnoticeably. No one knew how or why. People assumed aliens, other's God. Some fools credited the Earth itself.

The first time it went off Peter was only thirteen. 

One moment it read:

02:04:21:08

2 years, 4 days, 21 minutes and 8 seconds.

And in the next, it stopped counting with a bloodcurdling screech. He had been out shopping with Aunt May and Uncle Ben when it had decided to announce the death of his awaited person. The whole building went quiet as Peter looked down at his own wrist in shock before the inevitable tears started to stream down his face. Everyone within range knew what the alarm meant. 

The young boy's soulmate was dead...

Seventeen hours later Peter was red-eyed and curled up in his bed, staring at the black screen when the counter relit, shining a with a radiant, almost blinding red light before it dulled in brightness and started to count again.

02:03:08:00

2 years, 3 days, 8 minutes and 0 seconds.

At that time, Peter had thought it was the grace of God. He had run to his Aunt and Uncle to share the news. They were as baffled as Peter was amazed.

He cried again, this time tears of joy.

• • • • • •

00:18:01:05

0 years, 18 days, 1 minute, 5 seconds 

Peter was fifteen when he had jerked awake to the torturous sound that made his heart sink and breath catch. The sound that made everyone's heart flutter with a note of panic. 

No one else heard his alarm nor his sobs as he muffled his uncontrollable cries in his pillow, believing he truly was alone in the world now, that he would have no one waiting for him in the future. His soulmate had already died once after all. What were the chances that they'd come back again?